lie to me → s.d.

.12 | four birds

          Mornings in Italy were much rainier than Theodora would have thought. The damp, cold drizzle somewhat soothed the hungover headache she was carrying in the back of her skull, as did the cigarette hanging limply from her lips. The combination of the raindrops splashing against the cobblestone streets, throwing up their comforting scent, and the clouds of smoke moving through her airways, created what she would call the perfect potion to make her forget the world - at least for a few minutes.

          She knew smoking would kill her one day. Nicotine and smoke had made their home in her chest for years now, and she figured it was somewhat ironic that there was a time they used to make her gag. Living the life she had just jumped back into, she thought there were better things that would eventually be her demise; bullets spraying at her back or thousand-foot drops waiting to swallow her up. It would be better to die from those, she decided, than to some addiction or the breast cancer that claimed her mother.

          Drizzle turning to a low drum on the canopy over her head, she watched the street in front of the hotel like an alleycat waiting for prey to wander into view. People ran with their jackets over their heads and umbrellas shielding them against the freezing rain; the damp bench she was sitting on suddenly seemed much harder than it had been when she first sat down. They had no idea what she was doing - to them, she was a tourist looking for good places to pose for social media pictures and keychains with her name on it. And that was precisely what she loved about it. Because the people back home knew who she was and what she was doing. Mrs. Platz down the hall knew where she worked and her regular routine, being the nosy neighbor she was. Her coworkers knew her middle name and her favorite television shows. But here, in the middle of the unknown with only the friends she trusted most in the world, she felt like perhaps she could find something new. Be someone new.

          Or maybe be who she truly was.

          "Care if I join you?" said a voice. She rolled her head to the side and found Sam waiting for some kind of consent; she nodded her head and he sat. A few inches of bench separated them. Hitching his jacket tighter around himself, he produced a cigarette, and leaned forward when she offered her own lighter. It seemed so intimate, such a tiny act, but there was no denying how deep the invitation went through both their veins. The way his hand held hers delicately, gingerly, to keep the flame steady, how his other cupped the air around it to keep the breeze from blowing it out and ruining the moment.

          He leaned back into his own space when small, orange embers appeared on the end of his cigarette, and they both turned their gazes to the sun climbing over the tops of the buildings on the street. There used to be a time they did this every morning, be it on the porch of a cheap hotel or in the middle of their makeshift camp on a cliff or in bed with the door still locked. Someone who knew them would have said it was sad. Neither of them really knew what to say about it.

          Theodora tilted her head to glance at him, finally able to get a good look at the tattoos on the side of his neck. Four birds mid-flight stared back at her, wings extended and heads facing different directions, and the hint of a smile split her features as she took a shallow drag.

          He noticed her staring and smiled himself. "Like what you see, honey?"

          "I like your tattoos, Mister Egotistic," she said. Out on the street in front of them, a pair of women wearing shorts hiked up to the tops of their thighs jogged for cover from the impending thunderstorm. She stole a glance at him, as if she were going to catch him looking - like he wasn't allowed to, for some reason - and found that instead he was studying the tips of their shoes, tilted toward one another in their reclined positions. Some shot of what felt like pride, or perhaps satisfaction, rushed through her and she leaned back again. "You know, they remind me of that story you used to tell us when we were kids," she added. "About the birds that went in all different directions?"